NBN Co to finalise wholesale contract by July

 

Wants real industry engagement, not just legalese mark-ups.

NBN Co has revealed an "ambitious" deadline of June or July to publish the final version of its standard wholesale broadband agreement (WBA).

The WBA is one of two key documents that contain the terms on which NBN Co proposes to supply wholesale broadband services to access seekers.

The other document is the special access undertaking (SAU) which NBN Co will lodge with competition regulator the ACCC and which is expected to contain most information about price terms.

NBN Co's industry engagement manager John Sproule told an industry forum today that the company was working to have the WBA ready at least two months ahead of the launch of commercial services in first release sites.

"At the end of this month we'll release version two of the document, then we'll move into a deep dive with the first respondents to the consultation [process we started in October last year]," Sproule said.

"We're moving towards the WBA being ready to be published in June or July... so you have it well before you need to use it."

Sproule said NBN Co would also seek to engage sections of the industry that didn't respond to the October 2010 consultation paper.

He urged the telecommunications and ISP industry to get involved in the consultation process, but asked they identify underlying issues with terms rather than simply marking up changes in the WBA document.

"Simply marking up a document isn't helpful to us," Sproule said. "I can see the legal drafting but it helps to understand what the underlying issue is."

He said the first consultation process had seen a number of amendments made to the first iteration of the WBA, including to aspects involving product IP rights, default notices, minimum terms and disclosure of confidential information.

Sproule said that NBN Co was "trying to deliver a contract that will evolve over time".

"We expect the day one contract will be fairly demure in flavour but over time you will get options to how you operate your contract," he said.

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NBN Co to finalise wholesale contract by July
"Well I, for one, am sick of waiting for the sacred cow of capitalism to deliver me a half decent broadband service to my house in a metro area. This regime is touted as the best model to deliver ..."
By scooter
 
 
 
Comments: 2
Rossyduck
Apr 11, 2011 8:35 AM
Whats the point ? - at the core of the document they have the right to amend the document unilaterally. So far we have seen a governemnt legislatively gagging ACCC for certain NBN Co issues - it is now unfortunately not beyond the realms of imagination that once they have shut down all competition and suddently need to show a return on this flawed NBN Co - that the entire county gets tapped, whether they like it or not.
scooter
Apr 11, 2011 11:40 AM
Well I, for one, am sick of waiting for the sacred cow of capitalism to deliver me a half decent broadband service to my house in a metro area.
This regime is touted as the best model to deliver the best service to consumers. It plainly is not if people's satisfaction with their Internet services is any gauge.
Finally my ISP will have no excuse for not delivering ADSL2+ speeds to my house. That alone is worth the price because I can't get it from anyone right now.
You are a fool if you think the government won't find a way to tax us if that is what they want to do, NBN or no NBN.
The NBN can't come soon enough for me.
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